Water to your knees.
It's weighing you down now. More than this back-bending amour. More than the gnawing itch in the back of your skull.. Worming its way into the worn cartilidge between your knees. Bone scrapes on old bone. Bristling timber blocks and pulleys jerking you forward. It distracts from the stress. Focus on the physical pain, and you'll forget where you physically are. Where you mentally aren't.
[[Your breath on the fog.]]
[[Your feet in your boots.]]
[[The hilt in your palm.]]
From the fog the darkness yowls a hoarse reverb. A giant crashes through the wisps of fog. The mist coils around his pale physique, naked but for the swirling daubs in cyan and indigo.
Your heavy arm lifts by itself and steel meets steel. A spark of fury in the cold dark of the night.
His screech is cut short by snap of a lock, the boom of smoke and the wet crunch in his chest. The puncture pulsed blood in rhyt with the airless quivering of his lips.
Your saviour screams a word. He screams it at you, expectantly. His hand grips the rim of your breastplate and he throttles you, shouting again. Insisting the word to you, red face and white spittle screaming. Then it drains to a whisper, and the word drifts to the wind on a painful gurgle. His hands retract from your armor and to the wooden shaft splitting his neck. One end feathered, the other a pointed black stone, glistening with blacker blood. He tries the word once more, pained and choking it as he falls back. You recognise now. The word. The name. Your [[name]].
(set: $name to (prompt: "..........", "Your name?"))
[You claw at the lace ruff that pillories your neck. Bridled like a horse and spurred on parade for the Imperium's amusement.
'All rubbish.' Andreiu leans and whispers to you. 'Frock and frivolities for the noble crockery.' ]
[[Did you work on that rhyme?]]
[[Get me another drink before I kill something..]]
[[The gentle families paid their price too.]]
(set: $violent to True)
'You said it.'
[['Good evening.'|Noble Approaches]] (set: $noble to True)
Andreiu scoffs. 'You're not one of them $name. No matter how many ribbons and medals they festoon you with.'
'As much one as you a war hero.'
[['Good evening.'|Noble Approaches]](set: $rhyme to True)
'Can't claim it to be my own. An old rhyme. I think.' He sips his drink and looks back to the party. 'I know a few more rhymes, but they're less appropriate for our current company.'
'Here comes one now.'
[['Good evening.''|Noble Approaches]] (if: $rhyme is True )[A]
(else-if: $noble is True)[B]
(else-if: $violent is True)[C]
(else: )[How are you seeing this]
'Regardless, I'm Alfons, Duke of Bronzga, brother to her Majesty the Empress. I'd like you two to join my friends for a drink. We have a proposal we think you'd be interested in.'
Andrieu looks at you.
[[Yes|Listen to offer]]
[[No|Reject offer]]Breathe in. Breathe out. Laboured like a boy in the fields.
[[A figure]]
They squelch in the mire. The cold has spread into a numb sting, from toes to ankles. Though its preferable to the splinter sore blisters that bloat my sole from the march.
[[A figure]]It's heavy in all the ways a hoe isn't; balanced, light, burdened with cruel purpose. Layers of wool, chain and plate absolve my skin from the leather.
[[A figure]]We'll wait until we're called.
[[Meet the Empress]]We'd like to sponser your accenssion to Parliament. We need allies.
The Duke reaches into his pocket and produces two pins. A hand, so yellow it nears orange, identical to the broaches decorating the purple baldrics of the gentlemen.
[[Yes|Join the Blood Yellows]]
[[No|Reject the Blood Yellows]][[Meet the Empress]][[Meet the Empress]]Thank you for coming.
There are factions